Sunday, September 14, 2014

I found a parking ticket on my
blameless car yesterday. This morning I composed a dignified letter
of protest, not untinged with irony, and then looked closely at the
ticket and discovered that it had been issued to somebody else
altogether. So I had to start the letter again from scratch. Do you
think the offender was stupid enough to suppose that moving the
ticket to another car would let him off paying? I wrote the second
letter and sent it off with the ticket, and it all eats into valuable
blogging time.

I have nearly finished the third round
(of four) of the mooskit stripe on the return half of the border of
Rams & Yowes. Three stripes to go. I remember a line of Meg's
somewhere, when they knit EZ's famous ribwarmer with a skirt,
transforming it into a long jacket: Long Day's Journey into Garter
Stitch. I am very negligent about keeping my Ravelry up to date, but
I mean to post this as an FO once it achieves that status, with a
warning to everyone not to think, when the centre part is finished,
that they're anywhere near the end.

Non-knit

It looks as if we will be able to get
to Strathardle soon. My husband has been agitating for a visit,
although by now sufficiently aware of his frailty to sympathise with
my reluctance to be there without support. Greek Helen is coming over
for Mungo's first exeat at the end of the month, and Mungo – who I
am sure would prefer the bright lights of Edinburgh, since he is at
school in rural Perthshire already – has heroically agreed to spend
it in Kirkmichael. Archie will join us.

Archie himself phoned yesterday,
protesting mildly. Strathardle is boring. But since he has the bright
lights available constantly on his doorstep, we don't have to feel
too sorry for him. He sounded cheerful. Contrary to what I wrote
yesterday, he said he doesn't care what happens to Scotland but will
vote No for my sake.

We had a knock on the door from a No-campaigner yesterday. That doesn't often happen here, in any election. My Birmingham friend was surprised to see how little visual evidence there is of what is happening -- posters in windows, that sort of thing; I assured her that we are seething all right.

There'll Aways Be An England...

From Ian Paisley's obituary in the
Telegraph yesterday:

“In the Eighties he flirted with the
prospect of Protestant 'People's Militias' and once conveyed
journalists to a hillside in Co Antrim at night to witness 500 men in
military formation brandishing firearms licenses.”

I find that enormously funny. Maybe
only American readers will agree. Maybe it isn't funny at all.

5 comments:

Your little tale about Ian Paisley is funny, but isn't funny at the same time. I found him terrifying when he was in full rant - he ws so vehement. But then we learn that his wife always called him "Honeybunch". He certainly was a presence in the world! What he never was, was English - by birthplace or ancestry.

The Telegraph may have been funny yesterday but today's headlines are absolutely deplorable. There are Independents' and Unionists' pop-up stalls on every alternate street corner down here but I think on the whole, people are keeping their colours low on the mast, perhaps for fear of recrimination which is a great shame. Expect more knocks on your door in the coming days as the activists take to the streets to target the 'undecideds'.

I always found that Ian Paisley story horrifying...but whenever I had any dealings with him (I am a Hansard reporter) he was courtesy personified, and I know all my colleagues felt the same. I think he had a public political persona that was very different to the private man.

I remember visiting my great aunt in Dublin in the early 80's and her telling me that if she could, she would "take a yard brush and sweep him into the ocean" -that heavily accented and vehement phrase always comes to mind when I hear Ian Paisley's name. And the black comedy element of the brandishing of licensing is funny.